Laboratories of election thievery
In the District of Columbia this week, the U.S. Supreme Court denied Donald Trump’s demand to delay his Friday sentencing in the New York hush money case. But in Raleigh, North Carolina, SCOTUS’s Mini-Me court accepted the demand by Judge Jefferson Griffin to delay certification of the race he lost in November. Griffin’s team hopes to have the state Supreme Court election overturned by the state Supreme’s Republican majority.
Basic fact: After multiple recounts, incumbent Associate Justice Allison Riggs (D) defeated NC Court of Appeals Judge Jefferson Griffin (R) by 734 votes.
I’ve already briefed you on this saga here, here, here, here, here, and here.
The New York Times contacted several citizens among the 60,000 whose votes the NC GOP proposes voiding in an “extraordinary effort“:
“Anyone who is trying to invalidate my personal vote as fraudulent — that’s a direct attack on the voters,” said Mr. Clay, who voted for Judge Griffin, who now sits on the North Carolina Court of Appeals. “It’s inexcusable to contest these legal ballots. He’s a sore loser. It is what it is, whether it be by one vote, 100 votes or 1,000 votes. We have spoken.”
Griffin and his backers won’t hear it.
In mid-November, after a final vote count showed Justice Riggs winning, Judge Griffin filed a protest with the State Board of Elections, which has a Democratic majority. Judge Griffin argued that the forms that tens of thousands of voters were given to fill out did not ask for some information that they should have under the law.
The board turned the protest down in a series of votes that went largely along party lines, noting that what were apparently clerical errors on the part of county election officials were not the fault of the voters.
The state Board of Elections asked a federal district judge to oversee the legal challenge Griffin launched based on the federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA). When that Trump-appointed judge pitched the case back to the Republican-controlled state Supreme Court, the State Board filed an appeal with the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. That’s still pending.
The Democratic National Committee on Friday jumped into the fray.
Democracy Docket adds:
The DNC filed a brief urging the court to reject the Republicans’ request, arguing that they “seek to delete the votes of tens of thousands of voters in every state and municipal election not because those voters are ineligible or did anything wrong, but because of an alleged record keeping problem.” The Democrats added that all of these voters singled out by the GOP provided ID information at one point, like when they first voted.
Also, the DNC cited state and federal laws that establish that once an eligible voter is added to the voter rolls, a minor issue with their registration application is not grounds to nullify their vote.
[…]
The DNC explained that the Republicans are not only seeking to remove votes in the court race but in all state and local races, “including elections that were completely undisputed.”
Meaning, if this HAVA-based challenge succeeds in North Carolina, they will sue to reverse any race Republicans lose narrowly anywhere in the country based on this precedent.
People once said what starts in California eventually works its way east. But when it comes to euthanizing American self-governance, not so much. Here in one of David Pepper’s “Laboratories of Autocracy,” Griffin is still trying to steal an election the way Donald Trump and Team MAGA tried to steal the presidency in 2020.
Pay attention. If they succeed here, your name could be next on the list of voters whose ballots they throw out in your state.
My concern is that Democrats will throw all their efforts behind Defense rather than playing Offense via outside-the-box thinking (à la Spocko) that puts Griffin (and his team of attorneys) on his back foot. Beating the bullies in court is not enough. They need their noses bloodied.